Apple offers a little love with its DRM-free upgrades
(Credit:
Apple Inc.)
According to CNET's own experiments, the iTunes Plus feature that launched Wednesday and allows you to upgrade previously purchased EMI song files to the DRM-free versions appears to have a neat side effect.
The upgrade, which costs 30 cents per song or $3.00 per album, seems to be based on iTunes account purchase history, not whether the song file resides in your iTunes library.
Figure out the perk, yet?
It means that those of us who have lost a previously purchased iTunes song file due to a corrupted or lost laptop, now have a chance to get it back for only 30 cents more. While Apple has been known to restore lost DRM files in some extenuating circumstances, many people have had to repurchase them or go without.
Apple did not immediately reply to our request for comment on this found feature.
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
